• Creator Logic
  • Posts
  • A 400% Revenue Increase from New Management - and More from Taz and Alessia's Operating Stack!

A 400% Revenue Increase from New Management - and More from Taz and Alessia's Operating Stack!

Explore Taz & Alessia's 10-channel, 6-revenue-stream Creator journey

Author

Avi Gandhi
May 30, 2023

While I’m out on paternity leave, enjoy this previously Superlogic-only segment on short-form creators Taz and Alessia’s operating stack!

The Creator

I actually do have that percentage.

It was a 400% increase in our brand revenue.

Taz and Alessia are a couple from Melbourne who started making content during COVID; what started as an amusing way to pass time eventually turned into a significant multiplatform business with a larger mission - “to help quash stigmas around lesbians and inspire other queer people at the same time.” We won’t get into their mission here, as the linked Refinery29 article does a great job of it. Instead, we’re going to dig into their highly diversified business that spans 10 social channels and 6 streams of revenue.

Taz and Alessia produce a TON of content while also managing a community, and I had to ask how they manage to find the time to create all the content that they do. Their answer astounded me.

We have a lot of free time considering how much we do.

We started doing this in the COVID lockdowns when we were bored and had nothing else to do, and it used to take us four hours to film 2 pieces of TikTok content. We remember thinking to ourself “Is it always going to be like this?”

I think we've just gotten to a point where we lock out time. We do certain things, like today, we're filming for TikTok. And we just give ourselves that space to to be productive in that time.

For example, today, we're not going to sit here and brainstorm what we're filming, we already know what we're filming. We’re filming food videos. We've already got the food sitting in the fridge. We don't need to drive out and get it.

So the more organized and prepared with the planning you are, the easier it is to just create content and go.

In Taz and Alessia’s Stack breakdown, we’ll dig into:

  • The management company that increased their revenue 400% in a year

  • The project management system they use to manage a global team

  • The distribution tools that saw a 50% view drop and how they fixed it

  • The risky investment that seriously paid off to help them get a ton more done with less time spent

And more.

Let’s get into it!

The Stack

Team

Representation - Born Bred Talent

  • They were hesitant to get management in general

    • Taz worked in music, was jaded about management

  • They spoke to another management company called Zooz

    • They were really nice, but didn’t really connect

    • Zooz didn’t follow up on their conversation

    • Their talent list didn’t resonate - it was a bunch of beautiful IG models, not really many LGBT talent

  • Born Bred

    • They’re leading the TikTok space in Australia

    • They offered a 3 month trial, extended it to 6 months

      • Really showed what they had to offer

      • Got them comfortable with the day to day manager

    • Taz and Alessia laid out specific asks that Born Bred were willing to meet them on

      • Meeting on a fortnightly basis

      • Wanted to carve out projects unrelated to social

      • Wanted to carve out revenue from existing / owned projects like app, livestreaming revenue, etc.

      • No management email in bio, just management company name

    • They signed at the start of 2022

    • They saw a whopping 400% revenue increase YoY

    • Their growth was part of it, but they don’t think they could have consistently got the kind of work they are now (QUOTE)

      • Born Bred solved the consistency problem

      • Taz and Alessia still get inbound emails, but Born Bred are still bringing them a lot more revenue

I don't know if we could have consistently got that amount of work before them. We were landing some really great contracts. We'd work with Doritos and Tinder just on our own; we had really worldwide brands coming to us as well, and for great prices.

But the problem was, we wanted consistent work. And they solved that problem really easily. They were able to get us consistently good quality work, which we loved.

Most of my readers will know that I’m not a representation maximalist at all, but their story with Born Bred is a great reminder that excellent representation - where the reps are hunting for and bringing in new business, not just fielding inbound offers - really can take a creator’s earnings to the next level.

Content Production - Currently just them

  • Previously worked with some editors

    • Met through Upwork and through their community

    • They were great but Taz and Alessia don’t post YT content regularly enough to have one on hand

  • They prefer to edit their TikTok videos their own way

    • Alessia has a way of doing it and she’s comfortable and confident

      • Doesn’t trust anyone else to do it the way she would (QUOTE)

      • If it doesn’t work, she knows it’s on her

If it doesn't work, I'm like “Okay, cool. It's my own fault.”

Where if if it didn't work for someone else, I would be like “What are they doing wrong? They're not doing it like me!” and I don't want to put that pressure on someone else, you know, I'd rather it be on myself.

This is a common mindset among artistic creators - for example, David Dobrik and Emma Chamberlain have voiced similar points of view. If what the creator does themselves seems to directly contribute to audience and revenue growth, there’s a lot of fear and risk aversion that needs to be overcome in order to hand off that work to someone else.

Operations - Virtual Assistant - Jenn - via Outsourced Doers

  • In Philippines

  • Got an ad on Instagram for an agency that lets you hire a VA from the Philippines but handles all backend - legal, holidays, etc.

  • They LOVE her

It was a massive decision because at the time, we weren't even paying ourselves, so we were going to pay someone else while we were still working our other jobs. We saw it as a way that we could still have someone working on content creation stuff and admin while we were doing our day-to-day job.

It was kind of motivating for me knowing that every day we would be working on our dream in some way by having Jenn being a part of that. But it was a massive decision and a risk because it was financially a considerable amount to go through that agency. Like, in comparison, you can go on Upwork and hire someone for a really low price, but we wanted to make sure we were doing it the right way.

It was no lock-in contract, so we tried it for I think three months with the intention of “If this isn't right for us, we'll step away.”

But it was just great from the start.

Content Creation

Video - iPhones + Sony ZV1 + PC for Streaming Gaming + Ring Light

  • Sony for food content + YouTube videos

  • The rest on their phones

Audio - Rode Wireless Mics

Editing - MacBook Pro + Adobe Premiere Pro + Splice

  • Taz used Adobe for many years - she was a DJ

  • Alessia used Adobe in HS and while working for Channel 9

  • “Industry standard” - they are planning for a future where they work with editors, and having their process be on Adobe will make that easy

  • Splice = similar to Capcut, used for short-form video editing on iPhone

Asset Management - Google Drive and Google Photos

  • Store and share assets for brand work

  • Back up photos

  • They’ve used Dropbox and OneDrive in the past, but prefer the Google Suite because they like the docs, sheets, email

Project Management - Asana + Clockify + Loom + 1Password

  • Asana for both content planning and brand deal management

  • Their managers use Trello, but Taz and Alessia don’t like it, so they just use it to see stuff management shares

  • Why do they like Asana?

    • They started with Asana

    • Like that you can add goals and progress tracking in Asana

    • Can start chats with people in Asana

    • Prefers the UX

    • Prefers for long-term projects

  • Use Loom to communicate systems and processes for virtual assistant

    • Record how they do a task so VA knows how to do it as well

We were on a trip with a lot of creators and there was a creator in front of me on the bus on her notes, and it had passwords to all of her accounts! And I was just thinking - if there was a horrible person sitting behind her, they could just write all of those down and be able to blackmail her for her accounts, which happens a lot for creators.

So I think Password security is something that I would encourage any creator to invest in.

  • Use 1Password to share passwords securely with VA, editors, etc.

    • 1Password has “vaults” - they can choose which passwords/accesses go into the vault

    • Can give 1-time links, etc.

    • Alerts

Design - Canva + Adobe Illustrator + Miro

  • Canva for most things

  • Illustrator for merch

  • Miro for brainstorming, though Canva now has a whiteboard feature they haven’t tried yet. If it’s good, they might switch because Miro is a different subscription and an additional cost.

Podcast Production / Distribution - Anchor

  • They’re planning to launch a podcast

  • They’ll be repurposing their weekly reminders from the app as mini podcasts

    • These are 2-8 minute videos with advice, tips, perspective on different subjects for followers including CTAs

Distribution - Virtual Assistant manually uploading

  • They tried a bunch of scheduling / uploading tools, but ultimately chose to have their VA do it manually

    • Later - Were using to repurpose content to Pinterest and IG, but it didn’t have Reels support

    • Planoly - It has Reels support but it wasn’t worth paying for a tool that only was useful for one platform

      • It also wouldn’t remove the watermark

    • Repurpose.io - saw a >50% drop in views!

      • Can remove watermark

      • But if the views get nerfed then it’s not worth it

  • Currently all manual through their VA

Bio Links - Liinks

  • They had the most customizability for branding

    • Website-level customization

  • Taz used Linktree personally in the past, but Liinks gave way more customization

  • BONUS - they verified them - their first verification!

The verification piece sounds like a joke, but it’s an interesting idea - verification of creators can make them feel special, and that specialness can create loyalty. With bio links, which are super low friction to change, that loyalty can make a huge difference in retention.

Email - Clavio

  • Was using Active Campaign, but super expensive and weren’t sending enough

  • Looked into MailChimp, but didn’t have automations for the sequences they wanted

  • Segmentation, sequences, price were most important

    • Loved the notes and CRM aspect of Active Campaign

Business Management

Communication - WhatsApp + Slack + WiseStamp

  • WhatsApp for internal team

    • VA is in Philippines, so easy neutral way to communicate

    • Has had WhatsApp for ages

    • Easy to use

    • Likes keeping personal texts separate, so WhatsApp is work and texts are personal

  • Slack because management uses it

    • Slack is easy to forget about

  • WiseStamp for email signature

    • QUOTE - Always trying to find little ways of standing out

    • This was an early choice, so were price sensitive + lots of customization options (IG feed, quotes, etc. in email signature)

I'm always trying to find little ways of standing out and being memorable. I feel like our first email signature was just a font with a color, and it didn't look as professional. So I've wanted something to show we're serious about content creation and you can trust us…and I feel like an email signature can sometimes give that vibe. It's also a great way to display a portfolio without saying to someone “Do you want to see our content?” It's right there at the bottom. It was just a way that we could connect with people we were communicating with by email.

I love this so much I might steal it.

Credit Card - Quantas

  • Personal, occasionally uses for business

  • Currently running the business on cash flow

  • Haven’t really needed a credit card, it’s the last thing on their mind

  • It’s a great challenge for Taz to manage the cash flow and train her to not overspend

Bank - Commonwealth business account + Up account

  • Up = Banking for Gen Z in Australia

    • They like it, may move business banking there

      • Easy to use

      • Easy to navigate

      • Fun, colorful

      • Can make “folders” to separate money within accounts

      • Can set up automations easily

    • Solid interest rates

  • Commonwealth is long-standing Australian bank

Finances - Accountant

  • Had Xero, but it was expensive and they didn’t use it

  • They do all accounting on Google Sheets

Thanks for being a paid subscriber! Your membership makes the amount of time and energy I’m investing into interviewing and analyzing these creator conversations worthwhile. I am grateful for your partnership!

If you have questions you’d like me to ask creators, or want to work with me on your Creator strategy, please reach out to me at [email protected]. I can’t promise I’ll get every question answered, but I can promise that I will do my best to get the most relevant, interesting ones!

Thanks again for being part of this community. See you next week!

Reply

or to participate.